Story about this misheard lyric by: Kirsten Abercrombie

Though Eva Cassidy didn't exactly seem to use the familiar tune, many of the lyrics to this song are recognizable as taken from the old standard more usually known as 'The Water Is Wide', or occasionally 'The River Is Wide'. Being fimilair with one or another variation of the song since childhood, I always wondered what the relevance might be of a reference to wax (or coal)in the middle of a song otherwise having nothing to do with wax. Although I had been familiar with a use of 'wax' as a verb, at least in the present participle form in the term 'waxing Moon', understanding the phases of the Moon really didn't lend any insight into what love 'waxing cold' might mean, So I was grown before I had much chance of understanding this line in terms of the general meaning of 'wax' as in 'love....waxes cold'. Eva Cassidy has given us here possibly the most lugubrious version of these familiar lyrics (or by her own title, the most waly version). In her version, like most, it remains easy to 'hear' this line as a statement about wax (as a noun) even when one is familiar with the lyrics from various versions and finally knows what 'love....waxes cold' means.